Sheriff: Ferguson left letter claiming innocence in Jeremiah's death

When a Santa Fe County jail employee making his rounds went to check on Thomas Wayne Ferguson late Friday night, he found the accused killer dead, hanging from the window in cell A205.

That's not all law enforcement found.

An envelope was lying on a small desk on the east side of the jail cell. A letter inside, apparently written by Ferguson, "professed his innocence related to the homicide of Jeremiah Valencia, expressed disdain for law enforcement and the judicial system and conveyed personal messages to family," the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office said in a news release issued Tuesday afternoon.

While an investigation into Ferguson's suicide is over, the news release said, Sheriff Robert Garcia remains "confident that Ferguson was involved in Jeremiah's death and our agency continues to investigate the homicide case."

Ferguson is accused of torturing and killing 13-year-old Jeremiah in November at a home in Nambé and then burying the boy's body along a roadside.

Jeremiah's mother, 35-year-old Tracy Ann Peña, and Ferguson's son, 20-year-old Jordan Anthony Nuñez, also face charges in the death. They are accused of felony child abuse, tampering with evidence and failing to report abuse because they allegedly helped Ferguson with the burial and kept silent about the boy's death. Both remain in the Santa Fe County jail.

Ferguson, the lead suspect in the case, faced a charge of first-degree murder.

Juan Ríos, a sheriff's office spokesman, said he would not release a copy of Ferguson's letter.

Before issuing Tuesday's news release about the letter, Ríos told The New Mexican that Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Padgett, who is prosecuting the defendants in Jeremiah's death, had requested the contents of the envelope be turned over as evidence.

Lawyers representing Peña and Nuñez did not return calls seeking comment on the letter.

Ferguson's suicide, announced Saturday morning, sparked anger at the District Attorney's Office and came as Ferguson was about to be transferred to a state prison to serve a nearly six-year sentence for violating the terms of his probation in an unrelated case that dates back to 2014.

District Attorney Marco Serna said he and other prosecutors were not aware that Ferguson reportedly made a suicide attempt before his arrest in that case, in which he was charged with holding a girlfriend hostage and beating her over several days.

Prosecutors under a previous district attorney, Angela "Spence" Pacheco, had argued at the time that Ferguson should remain jailed because he had "tried to kill himself rather than be taken into custody."

According to police reports in the 2014 case, Santa Fe SWAT officers responded to Ferguson's home on Mann Street, near St. Michael's Drive, following allegations that a woman had escaped from being held there for several days against her will.

The woman told officers that "Ferguson was suicidal," reports say. He had no weapons, she said, but "would probably use pills."

Officers eventually forced their way into Ferguson's residence and found him unconscious and barely breathing, according to reports. There was an empty pill bottle near him, and officers seized a number of other empty bottles for prescriptions like the opioid painkiller oxycodone, sleeping medication and antidepressants.

Ferguson was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, reports say. He survived the incident and eventually pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and kidnapping.

Asked whether he thought Ferguson's suicide might have been avoided if his office had known about the previous suicide attempt, Serna said no. The District Attorney's Office, he pointed out, does not run the jail.

Santa Fe County officials have defended jail staff members, saying they followed the proper protocols in Ferguson's detention. He was held away from other inmates in a cell that received routine checks every half-hour. And on Friday evening, a sheriff's office report says, a guard was right on time in performing the checks.

"Despite best of intentions and practices with respect to suicide prevention, occasionally an individual who decides to self-harm within a detention and correctional facility will commit self-harm," Santa Fe County spokeswoman Kristine Mihelcic said in a news release issued Monday.